On January 14, Prime Minister Naoto Kan reshuffled his cabinet and vowed to forge ahead with “a radical review of the Japanese social security system as well as comprehensive tax reform.” But once again, he was missing the point. In view of the rapidly expanding military power of China, what Japan needs most urgently, in my opinion – and in the opinion of many thoughtful Japanese – is a speedy implementation of a drastic overhaul of its flawed national defense system.

　　　What then is the problem with Japan’s defense system – in terms of how the Defense Ministry and the Japan Self Defense Forces (SDF) should be organized. The Japan Institute of National Fundamentals (JINF), a 100 percent privately financed think tank I represent, recently had an opportunity to invite Rikio Shikama to hear what the diplomat turned expert on national defense had to say about this issue. Shikama has over the years commented on defense-related issues from an informed international point of view.

　　　First and foremost, Shikama pointed out that, in all of the nations of the world except for Japan, the military is a full-fledged organ of state, differing in nature from the police, which come under the direct supervision of the executive branch of the government. A comparison of the military with the judiciary will make Shikama’s point easier to understand.

　　　Separation of the three branches of government – the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary – is the basic principle of Japan’s democracy. Given this fact, one may wonder why the Justice Ministry should belong to the executive branch when it claims independence from the government. The Justice Ministry certainly is charged with personnel and budgetary matters as part of the responsibilities of the executive branch of the government. But on the other hand, as is widely known, the ministry has a group of seasoned experts who take the judiciary (i.e., trials) under their charge, stringently guarding against any government intervention.
　　　Shikama points out that the armed forces of other countries operate under  a structural environment similar to the SDF. With the ordinary military in an ordinary democracy, the ministry of defense – or the department of defense – takes charge of personnel and budgetary affairs as part of the responsibilities of the executive branch, while a specialist group of professional soldiers is placed in charge of military policies. In Japan, however, military specialists ( i.e., the SDF personnel) have absolutely no chance whatsoever, under present circumstances, of being entrusted with the planning or implementation of military policies – long a norm for the armed forces personnel in other democracies around the world.

　　　However, as the judiciary comes under the direction of the justice minister despite its “independence,” and furthermore of the prime minister under all circumstances, so the SDF must be placed under strict “civilian control.”

　　　But then, what is civilian control – allegedly designed to exercise control over the SDF – all about? This term is literally translated as “control (of the SDF) by civilians,” but Shikama emphasizes it should have been more precisely termed “political control” in the first place. Because the SDF are required to follow the directives of politicians who the people have elected as their representatives in the Diet – as well as the directives of the government which comprises these politicians – Shikama asserts that “political control” should have been the right way to put it.

“Civilian Control”

　　　Nevertheless, “civilian control” has always been construed – literally – as control of the SDF by “civilians.” Through this phenomenon, one can clearly discern a meticulous plot pursued by the bureaucrats of the former Interior Ministry of Japan. The expression “civilian control” – a term totally unfamiliar to the majority of Japanese until after the Pacific War – was supposedly passed on to the Japanese government by the U.S. occupation forces around 1950, when the National Police Reserve, the SDF’s predecessor, had just been formed. A translator at the time apparently mistranslated the words as “control by civil servants.” The former Interior Ministry bureaucrats, then with the Defense Agency (subsequently the Defense Ministry) then took advantage of it, willfully interpreting the term and changing it to “civilian control” as it is known today. They thus created an environment in which they themselves – the so-called “sebiro gumi” (“suit group”) bureaucrats – went on to place the uniformed military administrators (“uniform group”) under their control at the SDF.

　　　As a result, a councilor system unheard of in the armed forces of any other nation came into being within the SDF. Under this system, bureaucrats sent on loan to the intra-ministerial bureau banded together under the defense minister to rule over the “uniform group,” implementing varied national defense policies as they saw fit. The policies these bureaucrats are entrusted with even today are not limited to just personnel and budgetary matters alone, but include vital national defense strategies and operational guidelines essentially requiring expert knowledge.

　　　In a host of areas where the expert opinions of career soldiers and officers are naturally taken into confidence elsewhere in the world, only the opinions of the intra-ministerial bureaucrats have been valued in Japan. It would be safe to conclude that the most outstanding feature of “civilian control” applied to the SDF is a bureaucratic resolve not to recognize them as armed forces – despite the fact that Japan is ranked seventh in the world in military expenditures (2009) after the U.S., China, the United Kingdom, France, the Russian Federation, and Germany. In fact, there are many laws binding the SDF which virtually everybody agrees simply do not make sense, and many of Japan’s defense policies are actually nothing but plain arm chair theories. This is exactly what has been brought about by the so-called “civilian control.”

　　　Let us take a look at a resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council expanding sanctions on North Korea on June 12, 2009, after the recluse communist nation conducted a nuclear test the previous month. Incidentally, there is no denying that the resolution was considerably eviscerated by China’s persistent objections. Because of the peculiar structuring of its military, Japan, which nominally joined the group of nations pushing for the sanctions, would have been intolerably disgraced had the resolution made on-the-spot inspections of suspicious North Korean ships mandatory.

　　　Suppose a maritime SDF ship encountered a North Korean ship, and needed to implement an immediate inspection of the ship’s cargo as the U.N. sanctions demand. The legal basis for the maritime SDF’s actions to be taken under such circumstances is the “law regulating shipping inspection operations in connection with extraordinary situations in areas surrounding Japan (that seriously affects Japan’s peace and security)” (The Ship Inspection Operations Law).

　　　Article 5 of the law stipulates that the actions the maritime SDF is entitled to be divided into seven stages, the first four being: (1) Monitoring a ship’s passage; (2) Signaling the ship and throwing signal flares to let the ship know the maritime SDF is on the spot; (3) Inquiring about the ship’s registration, intended destination, as well as the nature of the cargo; and (4) Requesting the captain to stop the ship and boarding it to inspect the cargo after winning the captain’s consent.

　　　In other words, the maritime SDF is not entitled to inspect the ship without its captain’s assent. Should the ship in question be carrying missiles and nuclear-related cargo, however, there can hardly be a chance in a million that the captain would agree to such an inspection.

　　　In that case, the SDF is expected to further take the following steps: (5) Requesting the captain to change his ship’s destination. But then, what if the captain still won’t comply? Step (6) is, “Persuasion.” And if the ship’s captain still refuses to comply, the last resort is step (7) – simply keep pursuing the ship as it sails for its intended port of entry, no matter where.

　　　In each of these stages, the SDF does neither have the enforcing power nor the right to resort to force to subjugate its counterpart, which would be the natural course of action for the armed forces of other nations. Of course, the SDF can use arms should the other ship launch an attack on them. Even in such a case, however, the SDF personnel are under strict orders not to harm people; they cannot wound or kill anyone – even if their counterparts may be crew members of a spy ship or a band of pirates. This way, the SDF cannot credibly work in tandem with the armed forces of other nations in conducting on-the-spot inspections of suspicious ships on the high seas as called for by the U.N. resolution.

Refurbishing the Institutional Flaws of JSDF

　　　This abnormal – and absurd – situation is attributable to the “civil servants” within the defense ministry, who have manipulated to place the SDF under the same judiciary system as the police in order to flake off any aspect of SDF resembling armed forces. In any nation of the world, the military and the police are the two organizations that are fundamentally different from each other, and the judiciary system governing them each should automatically differ. Shikama explains the differences as follows:

　　　“Firstly, in terms of their respective functions, the military takes care of national defense, while the police are in charge of peace preservation, crime prevention, and criminal investigation. Consequently, authority given each of them in performing their duty differs on the basis of the so-called ‘negative list’ – for the military, and the ‘positive list’ – for the police.”

　　　Allow me to explain what these words are supposed to imply. The “negative list” refers to specific acts one should refrain from, which allows the parties involved to engage in anything and everything that is not prohibited. On the other hand, the “positive list” refers to everything and anything that needs to be done, banning the parties involved from engaging in anything other than those specifically ordered to perform. Typical examples of the actions reflecting the “negative list” include refraining from “harming citizens” and “abusing prisoners” during military operations.

　　　Meanwhile, should a maritime SDF ship encounter a suspicious-looking North Korean vessel on the high seas as mentioned earlier, a most frustrating situation for the SDF is bound to ensue when the vessel refuses to comply while the SDF follows a set of measures specified by the “positive list.”  The only thing the SDF can possibly do after implementing every detailed step – such as “monitoring (the ship),” “signaling,” and “inquiring about the ship’s cargo, destination, and registration” – is simply follow the vessel, barred by law to take any further action.

　　　When the North Korean ship carrying suspicious cargo fails to respond to signals and/or a stoppage order, the navy of any other nation would very naturally launch an instant attack under the discretion of the commander on the scene. Under such circumstances, the commander is entitled to take all measures necessary to bring terrorists, spy ships, or pirate ships under his control – so long as he abides by international law. However, that is not going to happen with the maritime SDF, because authority to take actions is severely handicapped: The Japanese government does not recognize the SDF as full-fledged armed forces, and the SDF is constantly constrained by the “positive list” of entitled actions that are on a par with the police.

　　　Actually, the same approach applies to Chinese ships violating Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. To protect Japan against such violations, these institutional flaws of the Japanese defense system must definitely be overhauled as a crucial step towards solidifying the very foundation of national defense. Ultimately, a revision of the Japanese “peace” constitution must be explored. Even though Prime Minister Kan sadly cannot be counted on to take notice of the grave importance that this crucial issue embraces, there are many thoughtful Japanese who are well aware that Japan’s future is seriously at stake unless concrete steps are taken at an early stage to overhaul the fundamental flaws of its defense system.

(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column No. 445 in the January 27, 2011 issue of The Weekly Shincho.)